Penile cancer stage, survival and body mass index.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to determine whether a higher body mass index (BMI) in penile cancer patients is associated with more advanced penile cancer stage at the time of treatment and cancer survival.

METHODS

We evaluated 433 penile cancer patients treated between 2006 and 2012 at our institute and recorded American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) stage, BMI, circumcision, smoking and age. A proportional odds model was used to assess a possible association between BMI and AJCC stage at diagnosis and controlled for circumcision, smoking and age. Five-year disease-specific survival was calculated using the Kaplan-Meier method, with the log-rank test assessing equality of distributions.

RESULTS

433 patients with a mean BMI of 26.8 kg/m2 were analyzed. No statistically significant association between BMI and AJCC stage was found (odds ratio 1.01 per 1 kg/m2 increase in BMI, 95% confidence interval 0.97-1.05, p=0.63). Differences in disease-specific survival were not observed based on the different BMI classes.

CONCLUSIONS

No association between BMI of penile cancer patients and their disease stage at the time of treatment was observed. Thus, BMI at penile cancer treatment does not affect prognosis.